Critical Essay by T. H. McCabe

In the following essay, McCabe traces the concept of Otherness in Lawrence's work, finding “Odour of Chrysanthemums” to be the earliest examination of the issue.

“The central law of all organic life is that each organism is intrinsically isolate and single in itself” (Studies in Classic American Literature 66). This is a basic Lawrencean idea: all living things are essentially strangers, outsiders, other. “Otherness” for Lawrence means the self's perception of that life beyond the self and inside all other living things. We can never know the exact sensation of life in another the way we know it in ourselves...